Producer: Interceptor Software
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.00
Language: Machine code
Author: Stephen Curtis

Maiden voyages of almost anything seem to attract drama. There was the sinking of the Titanic, Paul Newman's beautiful glass tower burnt down in Towering Inferno, and now, during the opening of New York's newest skyscraper, the Mayor has got stuck between floors in the lift and the chain holding the lift is slowly breaking. The hero of the piece is not Robert Redford but Orson who has been summoned to rescue the Mayor before death sets in. Orson must get enough ropes from the building to tie the lift to the steel beams to prevent its plummet. The skyscraper is seen as three screens (this isn't exactly a TOWERING inferno) or floors, and you can move between them by using the many relevant staircases, whilst avoiding being crushed by concrete blocks, grabbed by a zombie doorman or mutant revolving door or falling dust (they did say this was a NEW skyscraper?) and collecting the ropes necessary for the task. Fire doors on the second screen are shut and can't be opened unless you fire at them.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, SPACE to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, AGF, Sinclair 2
Keyboard play: sensible positions and responsive
Use of colour: good
Graphics: smooth, with some nice animation, generally simple looking
Sound: poor
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 3
Special features:

Plummet! is an above average game with good graphics. The game is playable but a task reduced only to getting ropes does not help the addictive qualities very much. Perhaps the imagination should have been used more in game creation than on variants of well trod themes. Fair enough, the game has not been brought out before but it seemed to have those properties of so many other games which make it feel familiar. For example, after seeing a few episodes of American TV series (no names!), the plots wear a little thin, an although this is an above average game, it is made up from the same old material. A little more imagination and originality please!

Plummet! is on the whole one of the most infuriating games I have played. Once you get to the top of the screen, shoot the doormen and dodge the failing dust and put a rope in the lift, your fire button stops working. I thought the graphics were very good but the sound, what there was of it, wasn't. I generally enjoyed playing it, even though it is infuriating.

Interceptor are probably better known for their CBM64 games where the graphics are great but the game content is game content if often lacking. This seems to be the case with Plummet!. Graphically, the screens are very good, the player and the Zombie Doormen are well animated and even the sound is good; but the game's challenge will be gone within a week even for people who find 'Breakout' games mystifying. Especially when priced this high, good graphics are not enough. We Spectrum owners are not averse to games being complex and mean, so a three-screen cousin of Manic Miner is hardly likely to set the Hotline Chart ablaze.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Curs, Sinc
FROM: Interceptor Micros, £7.00

Fortunately it's not you that plummets in this game, it's the mayor - three floors in a lift while you stand by having a good laugh.

You're supposed to be trying to help the poor trapped man by collecting ropes to hold up the lift. Thirty ropes will save him but you can only collect them one at a time and, as you would expect, there are lots of nasty things trying to stop you.

The hotel you are in is represented on three screens starting with the lobby, while the lift is stuck on the third screen up. You have to pick up one of the coiled, flashing ropes and climb a series of stairs through the three screens to the lift.

In your path there are, of course, a variety of hazards. The first floor features concrete floor blocks which move up and down trying to crush you, as well as a zombie doorman who shuffles up and down, his back permanently hunched.

The second floor has a mutant revolving door and four fire doors, while the third has four doormen and falling dust, all of which prove fatal to your rotund character.

The doormen can be dealt with by dematerialising them with a tranquiliser, but you can only shoot this while you are carrying a rope. The fire doors are also opened by shouting at them, though why tranquilisers should open doors I'm not sure.

If you lose all your lives the chain which is holding the lift snaps and the mayor plummets three floors while shouting for help. Unfortunately you don't get to see him hit the basement in a crumpled heap, but you can't have everything can you?

High scores for this game aren't going to look very impressive since you only score one point for each rope attached. If you can get more than 10 you're doing well.

The background graphics are attractively drawn, but rather large. The size of the characters produces extremely annoying colour-clash problems. This results in the game characters - and especially the zombie doorman who flickers awfully - becoming partially invisible for considerable periods of time.

Sound consists of a squeal when you die and a grating click as you run along.

My interest lasted for about 45 minutes due to poor execution and a lack of any real addictive qualities.

Interceptor are not doing their reputation any good by producing games like thiss one.

STEVE SPITTLE

Uninteresting graphics combined with pathetic sound and only three screens makes this one to avoid.

The main feeling you get out of this game is sheer boredom as you go past the same uninteresting hunch-backed zombie doormen who stroll around looking very tired - and who can blame them?

Getting all 30 ropes ought to be a challenge - but I don't think anyone will be able to stand the tedium for that long.

STEVE PERKINS

PRICE: £5.50
GAME TYPE: Arcade

What is Orson doing? "What are you doing, Orson?" "Can't stop, must save the mayor from an awful fate." "Eh?" "I said, can't stop, must save,..," and he is gone, rushing into the distance, trailing a long rope behind him.

He soon returns. "Forgotten something, old chap?" He shakes his head, "Hit by a mutant revolving door," "?" Off he goes again, trailing his rope.

Next time round, "Mutant revolving door again?" "Ghoulish hunch-backed Zombie doorman." Right, fine, not much to say to that, is there?" Some time later, Orson returns in the search of another rope. As he emerges in the lobby there is a screeching sound, cries for help and then a sickening thud. Orson collapses into a chair. "Just tell me all about it, old son." Tuens out that the Mayor was stuck in a lift which was giving way.

Orson, instead of calling the lift maintenance operatives, had decided to secure it by rushing around this doom-laden hotel in search of ropes and then tying them to the lift. Up and down, through three screens he ran, but the slightest mistake sent him back to reception and, with the Mayor's life at stake, the slightest mistake could not be tolerated.

Plummet is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Interceptor Micros, Lindon House, The Green, Tadley, Hampshire.